Wednesday, January 28, 2004

Another one bites the dust

Donna Romeo is but the latest casualty of our local band of political henchmen. I suppose eight years of her life was not enough to justify allowing her to resign under duress and go quietly. This approach would require far too much integrity and common decency.

Instead, she was abruptly fired, humiliated and pasted all over the front page of the newspaper accompanied by unfounded justifications.

Ms. Romeo should probably consider herself lucky that there was no mention of criminal investigations or scandals as was the case with Virgil Christian, who incidentally, was never charged with so much as jay walking by the authorities, imagine that.

They are the masters of defamation and humiliation. It reminds me of a scene from the movie, “Wall Street,” where Gordon Gecko says to his apprentice, Bud Fox, “Bud, in this business you’re either on the inside or you’re on the outside.” This basically says it all.

There are a large number of citizens in this community who feel that Donna and Virgil were, in fact, doing an excellent job with the tennis center and the amphitheater. They simply did not fit into the master plan of those who are now in control of these facilities.

The bad news is that these individuals have now ventured into the business arena where politics and BS don’t count for much. What does count is monetary results. The results which shall be required of them in 2004 will be to operate the two facilities for an annual city subsidy of less than $185,000, which is approximately what was required in 2003 under the direction of the outsiders. Good luck men, the clock is ticking.

Tom Johnson

Peachtree City, Ga.